CYN
by SonicGurl98
Summary: Worlds collide as our Sonic and Tails enter the world of Sonic Boom! Join Sonic and Tails as they find themselves trapped in a world full of familiar friends with unfamiliar faces, discover the plight of Bygone Island under the dreaded CYN regime, and witness Sonic facing his most-despised enemy... HIMSELF... aged-up Sonic/Tails
1. Act 0: The Boom of Bygone Island

As the day wound down, Sonic and co. were just getting ready to finish off Dr. Eggman and foil his latest scheme – this go-around, the doctor's _brilliant_ mind had concocted a plot to take over the island by... brute force. This of course—a scheme worthy of the evilest of geniuses—earned him a snark behind his back from Sonic, which the hedgehog himself forgot, moments after he had first said it. At this point, the five of them had lost sight of the fact that Dr. Eggman raised real terror, causing devastating amounts of damage to several homes that had been there for years, while he was at it. Sonic figured 'Egghead' didn't care much for that. Neither did he, really.

"Ready to kick some serious butt?" Sonic asked his four other friends, eliciting an uncaring shrug from three of them while getting a sympathetic fist bump from his two-tailed ally. Tails was always there to back Sonic up, and, in a world that seemed to want nothing more than to take the wind out of his sails at every turn, that meant a lot to Sonic. "Alright then, let's go!" Without hesitation, he and the rest of them ran to take on the threat—and not a moment too soon, as Eggman's robots were now shooting the rock formations up.

Sticks whacked her mighty boomerang on the right shoulder of the Spike-Roller bot, denting it fatally and causing it to implode; Amy tossed her hammer into the eye of Dr. Eggman's Eye-Beam Machine, causing it to fall over and shatter its glass; Knuckles uppercutted and threw the Spider-Legs bot on its back before belly-flopping it—which made the echidna's belly ache awfully, but it was enough to put a stop to the machine; Tails whipped the Motobugs with his enerbeam, causing each to short-circuit; and Sonic homed in on each Buzzbomber, smashing right through with ease before landing gracefully on his feet and pointing out to Eggman. "Face it, Eggman, you're never gonna beat us!" Sonic exclaimed.

"It isn't over until it's over, Sonic!" Eggman retorted, just as Knuckles punched out the last of the robots. "... Oh, well, I guess it _is_ over, then," the evil doctor quietly admitted, out loud.

The team gathered together and celebrated, high-fiving all around even though, in truth, the victory wasn't that exciting. They knew they would all go back to watching boring cartoons and eating crappy, artificial food later. But then, just as Eggman began to fly off to figure out his next plot, one half-functioning Eye-Beam Machine loudly shot one last corrupted laser into the high edge of a mountain. Everyone stopped and stared as the light in the Eye-Beam Machine faded to blackness at last, then at the edge of the mountain. It looked like a large chunk of rock should've fallen, but it didn't. "Huh, uh... that's weird," commented Knuckles.

Chiming in with yet another bit of nerdy babble, Tails walked closer to the mountain as he responded, "Actually, it makes sense, as the trajectory of the beam was just slightly off from the angle in which it would actually cause the rock to fall off and smash whatever was below it into—pardon the crude term—flapjacks." The others groaned at the fox's nerdiness, while Sonic merely smiled and watched Tails say "What?!" exasperatedly at everyone else's disinterest.

The sound of a crackle from the loose piece of rock pierced the air and rang in everyone's heads, causing slightly more anxiety to swell within them. "... That is, I suppose I didn't take i-into account the corrupted nature of th-the laser, which could complicate things..." Tails's voice trailed off as he proceeded to recalculate the probability of the rock falling in his mind.

"Uhh, Tails?" Sonic said, as his temples heated in worry, "C-can you move now? It might not be safe right under that, uh, rock," he suggested to the fox, but the two-tailed geek was completely spaced-out in calculations. "Tails? Tails, can you get out of there, please?" the voice of the sapphire speedster grew more and more desperate with each passing moment. Slowly, against his anxiety, he began to take steps towards the fox. "T-Tails?" He said once more, in vain.

Further and further, Tails fell into his own thoughts, before finally proclaiming, "Ah-ha! With this new element taken into account, I now posit that, in fact, the rock _will_ fall at any momen—" he concluded, before the rock at last fell and promptly smashed him completely under its weight. No one moved, or said a word, for minutes. Everyone just stood and stared, speechless at the sight of their friend being utterly obliterated.

Breaking the silence, Eggman commented, honestly, "Oof, that actually looks like that hurt... I mean, ha-ha! Yes, I meant to do that!" He attempted to save face and take credit for it, claiming his victory against the group.

Sonic's right eye twitched.

Like a hedgehog possessed, Sonic dashed to the remains of the shattered rock, digging for his old friend. "C'mon buddy, c'mon Tails, c'mon pal," he muttered to himself as his vision blurred with tears. "You always come back, you always come back, you always come back—please, gosh, come back!" Sonic cried out, louder than was comfortable for anyone within his vicinity.

"Well... this is uncomfortable to watch," Eggman rolled his eyes, the twinge of remorse he had felt for but a moment before had faded completely as he began to fly his Egg Mobile away from the group, unchallenged.

That is, until Sonic found Tails... or, what was left of him.

Something hot built up in the once cool-blue hedgehog. It filled him in every bone of his body, in every part of his soul, and lit his entire being on fire with a rage he had never known before. "Hey, you lousy freak!" He shouted into the sky at Eggman, causing the evil doctor to halt and turn to look at the hedgehog addressing him. "You did this to him! You killed Tails, you worthless clown! You miserable scumbag loser!" He growled in an anger that struck fear in the hearts of even his allies, a fear that they may no longer be allies to this hedgehog for much longer.

Unsettled, Dr. Eggman rebutted, "W-well, to be fair, i-it was my Eye-Beam Machine that killed—er... Trent? Timmy?" This earned a primal growl from the ferocious hedgehog, striking terror further into the hearts of everyone around him. "Well what did you expect? I've always been evil, this is what I'm supposed to do!" The doctor argued.

"His name was **Tails,** and I'm going to make you regret killing him!" Sonic howled, spinning with all his might before shooting out into a mountain, tearing a devastating hole into it and causing the loud rumble of rocks falling to the ground to fill the ears of everyone on the island, as he used it to bank himself off of it and into the sky.

As Eggman got a look at the soaring hedgehog, he had a look in his eyes—or, well, eye with two pupils and irises—that he had never seen before. "N-now, Sonic, l-let's be reasonable and resolve this like responsible a-adul—" Eggman started, before being homed into by the hedgehog and attacked viciously and mercilessly. The sounds the evil genius made could be heard all too well by the people below, as they heard it then and would soon hear it once more in nightmares to come.

The unrecognizable hedgehog, once he had finished beating what was once his nemesis, launched off of the Egg Mobile and landed on the sand of the beach their final battle had taken place at. Shortly after, the Egg Mobile fell and crashed into... Sonic's home—then exploding, taking out any remains of it. Sonic's allies thought to apologize and console Sonic for the loss of his home, but couldn't, for the memory of Eggman's screaming was too fresh in their minds.

Slowly, Sonic walked over to Tails's remains and picked up what was left, cradling it in his blue arms as best as he could – a disturbing sight that provoked Amy to walk up to Sonic to confront him, saying, "Sonic... listen, it's going to be okay, I know you, you'll get through this with the rest of u—"

"—You. **Don't. Know.** _ **Anything**_ **about me.** " Sonic growled angrily, with a look in his eye that could burn the world down, before storming off with Tails still in his arms. "They'll pay," he said to the corpse, "they'll all pay. I'll _**make them**_ **pay,** " he swore to it, before speeding up and out of sight from anyone in the island.

From that moment on, that incident—the sounds of the doctor's horrific screams, and the petrifying rumble of the mountain—would be known and remembered fearfully by every one on the island, referred to only as... **The Boom of Bygone Island.**

* * *

With a fatality finishing Sub-Zero off, Goro had won yet another match in Tails's playthrough of Mortal Kombat X. "Darn it!" Tails frowned in frustration, losing for the umpteenth time as Sonic gave him a consolatory pat on the shoulder. "I'm fine, I'm fine," Tails assured the hedgehog comforting him, "I'm gonna get him this time, for sure..." Wtih a flick of the Xbox controller's analog sticks and a press of its 'A' button, he was retrying the battle once more.

Concernedly, Sonic watched on—witnessing every bruise, hearing every crunch of the bloody game. "You sure you wanna keep this up? It's half past midnight and we gotta go to bed sometime, l'il bro," Sonic said, inwardly shuddering at how 'responsible' he was sounding right then – he wouldn't make a habit of it, he knew, Tails just brought it out of him sometimes with those gaming habits of his. "You can take down Goro tomorrow, first thing—after we brush our teeth and make our beds—just... sleep on it, y'know?... I don't like seeing you _die,_ " he told the fox, in a tone he wanted to not come off weird, but not insulting... and not comedic either.

"Technically," Tails nerdily corrected the hedgehog, "it's Sub-Zero who's dying, not me." Expecting for the hedgehog's worried expression to fade upon hearing the sound logic, the fox was puzzled when Sonic's concern persisted—though he did nod, acknowledging the fox's point. "Is everything okay?" Tails asked, pausing the game outright to focus on his friend in distress.

It put Sonic in a position of pressure, not knowing what to say or how to explain himself to his twin-tailed friend. He knew it was only the video game character and could see the logic of what Tails said well enough, but his heart contradicted it in its anxiety. "Look," Sonic started to say, "I... I dunno, l'il bro, there's just this feeling I'm getting... something about tonight is putting me off that stuff..." Surprising Tails and even himself, Sonic then opened his arms out in request of a hug, which the fox accommodated soon after, if a bit puzzled as he did. "I'm sorry I'm like this, pal," Sonic laughed, insecurely, earning a 'look' from Tails, "sorry, sorry, I shouldn't say that..."

Sighing, Tails pulled out of the hug and turned the game off. "Let's just calm down, okay? You seem really on edge, tonight," Tails said to the hedgehog, before getting off of the sofa and heading to their room, with Sonic following shortly after.

As Tails made his bed, he glanced over at Sonic and found him trembling under his covers. "Sonic? What's gotten into you today?"

"Uhh, haha, who, me? Nothing's in me, Tails, besides a very scary skeleton doing the exact same thing I'm doing at all times— _yipes!_ " Sonic jokingly answered, hoping his terrible humor would get Tails to stop worrying out of distaste for his awful joke, but found he wouldn't ease the fox's concerns that easily. "Well," Sonic started to say, thinking of something else to convince Tails everything was fine, "I am a _little_ scared I'll have a _bad dream,_ would you mind giving me a great big hug to make me feel better~?" He spoke, sarcastically, in the silliest voice he could come up with in his tired state of mind.

With a friendly smile, Tails asked, "Would it help, really?" It took a few moments, but Sonic eventually nodded, which signaled Tails to lean in and give Sonic the nicest hug he had in him at that hour—eliciting a gasp from the hedgehog tensing up, but settling into it, moments later. "According to my calculations, nine times out of ten, your sarcasm is a cry for help," Tails said.

"Oh no way, that _can't_ be right," Sonic rolled his eyes, although, on the inside, he couldn't help but smile at the fox nerding out as usual.

Accepting the 'challenge' to his calculations, Tails cited his 'sources,' saying, "well there was that time you 'sarcastically' mentioned being 'totally bummed' that we were out of peanut butter and then proceeded to have that jelly sandwich while pouting _the whole time,_ then there was that time you 'sarcastically' said you'd cry if we went out during the rain but when we did I could see you were crying like you were maybe hoping the rain would kinda make it look like you weren't crying but you were really really crying, and then—"

"Fine, fine, you got me!" Sonic gave up, admitting defeat at the hands of the nerd, "Thanks... I didn't think anyone paid that much attention to what I say... heck, I hardly pay that much attention, I just say things..."

Loosening his hold on the hedgehog, Tails replied, "Well, it's not like you give me much else to work off of, you don't exactly open your heart to anyone." This caused the hedgehog to tense up once more, which the fox could sense in his arms. "It's okay," Tails groggily assured the hedgehog, releasing him from his embrace and crawling back into his own bed, "you don't _need_ to... I just try to figure you out so I can help you... you've helped me a lot, after all."

Growing a smile—uncharacteristically slowly—Sonic relaxed once again and nodded, mentioning to his friend, "Y'know, I've noticed some things about you _too,_ buddy." In the dark, he could faintly see an ear of his fox friend's perk up, so, upon piquing the interest of his twin-tailed roommate, he revealed, "Your tails start to spin when you're excited, you mutter some kind of elements like 'osmium' and 'zinc' under your breath when a video game frustrates you, and you never ever m—" his voice caught in his throat when he noticed the fox had fallen asleep. Sighing with a bittersweet smirk, Sonic said to the sleeping fox, "goodnight, pal..."

Coincidentally, the fox formed a smile afterward, raising suspicion in the hedgehog. "Hey... you didn't just pretend to fall asleep just to mess with me, did you?" Sonic asked the fox, to which the fox replied unconsciously with more mumbling and muttering. "Mm... mhmm, that's right, you wouldn't mess with me..." Sonic yawned.

Sonic closed his eyes and let himself sink to a comfortable position on his bed, drifting as fast as ever into his dreams, before mentioning the last thing he meant to mention about noticing in the fox, "... You're too sweet to mess with anyone..."

 **To Be Continued**

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** When I wrote the first bit of this, I tried to capture the tone of the first season of the Sonic Boom TV show (very humorous and unserious, most often.) I haven't watched the second season, so I'm having this take place in 2015 ( _before_ the second season,) so it branches out from the actual canon.

The characterizations of the game universe Sonic and Tails were influenced most by my immersion in the series from the mid to late-2000's—the main sources being Sonic Unleashed, Sonic '06, and Sonic X, in that order.

I hope you've enjoyed the first chapter of my story, and that you come back for the second one when it gets published! :D


	2. Act 1: Trapped In Another World

"Birds..." Sonic mumbled in his sleep, "that turn into fish... in the sea—s-su-huh?" He stammered as he awoke suddenly, stirred by a commotion coming from the kitchen. Quicker than the human eye, Sonic bolted out of his bed and looked to see what had transpired in the realm of foodmaking and silverware-storing—only to find a twin-tailed fox grilling frankfurters and simmering chili, totally safe from any harm. "Oh... phew..." Sonic exhaled, collecting himself before greeting the fox, "H-hey Tails! Whatcha up to?"

Turning to face the big-mouthed blue hedgehog, Tails replied, "What's it look like? Making chili dogs for us! What're you up to, besides barging in, out-of-breath?" The last part was added in mischievously by the teasing fox, who then proceeded to thoughtfully add a calculated amount of chili to the hot dogs once they were put in their respective buns.

Sighing with a tired smirk, Sonic answered, "Nothin'." He grabbed a hot chili dog and grabbed a bite of it. Immediately hit with the fantastic taste combined with the intoxicating aroma of it, he commented favorably, "mmff, _this ish the besht_ —" he paused to swallow the mouthful of chili dog in his mouth, before starting once more, "ahh, this has to be the best chili dog I've ever had, pal! If I could marry a bunch of chili dogs, these'd be the ones!" His compliments were sincere, but Tails couldn't help but giggle at Sonic's trademark goofiness, while his heart did warm from his spiny friend's approval.

"Thanks, you dork," said the fox to the hedgehog, who then rolled his eyes at the 'dork' comment, "I figured it'd be nice to do something nice for you after you've been so off lately."

Momentarily choking on a bit of chili upon hearing the fox's remarks, Sonic promptly swallowed the rest of his chow and countered, "Hey, that was months ago! I haven't been acting weirdly since then, have I?" He waited for Tails to confirm his account of his behavior since the night that transpired a handful of months ago, but he never did. Sonic sighed, "Look, I don't want you to worry so much over nothi—whoa!" Sonic abruptly gasped as a tremor hit very briefly. "... Did you feel that?" Sonic asked Tails.

Blinking his blue eyes, Tails replied, "um, no, I—" before another tremor struck, this one enduring longer than the other, before settling down for another fleeting moment. "... Okay, _that_ one I felt," admitted Tails. They both braced themselves for the next, waiting intently for another for several minutes. When it seemed that the tremors were over, they eased – only to be met with the worst of the tremors as a portal opened up in the ceiling of the dining room, with a bright red echidna falling out and onto the table like a ton of bricks, smashing it to pieces under his weight.

Sonic was preoccupied by the intrusion, meanwhile Tails's eyes twitched at the destruction

As the hulking echidna slowly attempted to pick himself up off of the table, Sonic chuckled and remarked, "Well gee, Tails, I know I can be really hungry sometimes but _this_ is ridiculous!" Glancing over at the fox, he was met with a glare and an eye-roll, which, Sonic could admit, he had earned. Only then as the stranger blinked his purple eyes open did he reveal his striking resemblance to their friend, Knuckles, and yet... still seeming so wildly different, to the two. "Hey, uh... who're you? What're you doing here?" Sonic asked, as he went to help the echidna up—only to be swatted violently away.

"Don't touch me!" The stranger yelled, while the hedgehog was sent flying to the wall. Looking with his lavender eyes to inspect the hedgehog's form, then turning to look at the fox as well, his judgmental gaze softened. "Wait..." he realized, "you're not him..."

With a shake of his head, Sonic swallowed his outrage at being attacked like that for no reason and laughed, "Whaddya mean 'not him'?! I tried to help you and you knocked me off my block!" Sonic jumped back up on his feet and kept a safe, 'non-swattable' distance from the stranger. "Do ya mind explaining what exactly you're doing here? I figure you owe us one, wrecking our table and all..." Sonic mentioned, eyeing the ruined dining table of theirs while Tails nodded profusely.

Nodding, the stranger complied, answering the hedgehog, "Okay, just as long as you don't turn out to be an evil dictator who wants to hurt everyone, I'll tell you I'm Knuckles and I come from another universe—but if you _are_ gonna become a bad guy, I..." the wheels in Knuckles's head began to turn as he realized, "... oh, right, I guess I just told you that anyway... you get what I meant!"

The two chuckled at the echidna's distrust, knowing all too well it wasn't the first time the echidna had the wrong idea about the hedgehog and brushing it aside. What's more, it was a relief to the two to know he was an ally of some sorts, as Tails smiled and added, "Well, it's good to know some things don't change between universes," he warmly offered his hand to the echidna, "it's nice to meet you 'Other Knuckles,' I'm Tails! The hedgehog you decked is my housemate, Sonic," said the twin-tailed fox, motioning to his hedge-housemate, who couldn't help but notice the huge portal that had torn open time, space, and their ceiling above them. "What brings you here to our world?" Tails asked.

Knuckles reluctantly accepted the fox's hand and shook it firmly, stating, "Well, uh... Tails, I'm here 'cause things have gotten really bad where I'm from since the boom – our island's been taken over and the resistance is losing." Sonic's eyes widened while Tails listened intently, both emboldened to Knuckles's dilemma and ready to help in whatever way they can already, "Our numbers are so low, we really don't have much choice but to ask for your help." They both nodded meaningfully, understanding their seeming importance to the cause, only for Knuckles to add, "Well, we would've taken _any_ help, I just happened to find you two first and we don't exactly have a lot of time to find anyone more qualified, like an... alternate universe Knuckles & 'Knuckleena' of some sort."

" _Right, thanks,_ " Sonic spoke through gritted teeth while inwardly nursing his bruised ego, "I think we're ready to save another world—it's kinda what we do—but can you explain why the portal showed up on the ceiling? That'd be good to know, right, Tails?" Asked the blue blur, looking to his roommate and finding the fox disappearing into his own nerdy thoughts. "Uhh... Tails? Hello?"

Still paying more attention to his own thoughts than Sonic's calls, after another few moments, Tails finally inquired, "So, you live on an island, traveled through a portal not knowing where it would lead you, and just _happened_ to end up right here in our house?" When the echidna nodded in affirmation, Tails slapped his forehead and exasperatedly exclaimed, "The likelihood of such a thing is astronomically-low! You should've ended up stuck inside of a wall before you ended up in our dining room!"

Without missing a beat, Knuckles raised his index finger and replied, "But if I didn't, we _wouldn't have a story,_ right, reader?" He exchanged a knowing glance and a wave to his left... at nothing in particular.

Leaning to whisper into the fox's ear, Sonic asked, "Uh... so y'think that portal in the ceiling tore an actual hole in our ceiling? Are we _really_ going with this guy? Can you tell me if portals work in ceiling-destructy ways?"

"He _does_ seem a bit eccentric, but he seems genuine enough about why he's here, I think we can trust him," answered Tails, "and stop worrying about the ceiling!" He added firmly, before tapping the echidna's shoulder and grabbing his attention back to within the boundaries of the dented fourth wall, "So are you ready to take us back to your world now, Knuckles?"

Pausing to give a nod in affirmation, Knuckles wrapped an arm around both of them, bent his knees, and then jumped with all of his might... an entire six inches off of the ground.

A silence befell the three – broken only by the snarky hedgehog, who seemed all too happy to do so as he quipped with a smirk, "Skipped leg day, eh?" Other Knuckles stubbornly refused to give a response besides looking away embarrassedly, which provoked Sonic to add, "I mean, it's okay, Knuckles, we're just gonna have to work together to get through it! Now, let's jump on the count of three, 'kay?"

Briefly taking a moment to shake off the feeling of embarrassment, Knuckles bent his knees and locked arms with the others before starting, "... One."

"Two..." Tails added, with a twirl of his tails.

Looking at the both of them, Sonic smiled, seemingly ready for whatever was on the other side of the portal as he exclaimed, "Three!" At once, they all leapt off the ground and through the portal, launching face-first into the floor of the new world. "Ooagh!" Sonic grunted as his two 'teammates' landed on top of him. "Okay, aack... t-team... good effort, g-good team effort... _ugh,_ now can you both get off my back?" Asked the aching hedgehog, provoking them both to pick themselves up off of him, Tails taking the time to help Sonic up as well. "Ah thanks buddy," Sonic said softly, in such a way that seemed as though he only wanted Tails to hear it.

Sporting a bright smile, Tails replied, "of course." It was then that the familiar sound of broken technology sparking in the corner of the room entered the perked-up ears of the geeky fox, who looked to find the source of the sounds only to find a smoking, projector-like device that their echidna ally had picked up and proceeded to try to hide discreetly. "Um, Knuckles?" The twin-tailed fox called to the echidna, stopping him in his tracks, "What's that?"

"Oh," Knuckles chuckled nervously, "this? Aha, this is a _Put-It-In-The-Corner 4000_ , it was made like this by someone who definitely isn't you and it starts breaking when foxes from other universes ask questions about it—can we change the subject?"

Patiently, Tails approached the echidna and requested, "Lemme see that, please," but when he reached his hand out and Knuckles, in turn, kept further away, the fox saw something in his eyes. "Knuckles, don't worry," Tails assured, "I promise it's okay."

With that, the echidna seemed to grow less tense, helpfully handing the device to the fox for closer inspection. "Hmm... is this how you got to our universe?" Tails asked, receiving a nod from the echidna, "Then it's a good thing you found me – I can fix this, provided with the right materials. This is a prototype, right?" Another nod, this one a little less sure, "Okay, I'll fix this up into something that won't break. Then you won't even _need_ our help," Tails boldly claimed.

Like a star, Knuckles's face lit up as he heard the fox's words, exclaiming, "That's great! We should go to Amy, she'll be so glad!" He then proceeded to duck through a small passageway and hurry off, leaving the two behind.

Just about ready to follow the echidna, Tails began to move in his direction, before turning back to see Sonic with a funny look on his face, stood still. "... Sonic? You're coming, right?"

Moments passed as Tails waited for a response, before Sonic finally spoke up, playfully-anxiously, in the smallest voice, "... _Amy?_ " Tails rolled his eyes, Sonic chuckled and then proceeded to very reluctantly walk to where Knuckles left, before having his hand taken by the fox and led much quicker into it. "Aahh, heyyyy I was kidding!... This isn't about that thing you said where my sarcasm is a cry for help, is it...?" Sonic frowned, Tails grinned and continued to drag Sonic along until he gave up and caught up with the echidna willingly.

The three were more or less side by side when they went through one last passageway that led into the makeshift base of the resistance. It was dumpy, some people were working while others merely rested—looking as dead in their sound sleep as the toll of resisting had made them feel on the inside. Knuckles moved ahead of them, meeting with the pink and red figure with their back turned to them. "I guess that must be the leader," Sonic commented to the fox beside him, who nodded, as they both witnessed their echidna ally motion to them, drawing the figure's attention toward the two.

But when Sonic laid his eyes on the face of this supposed stranger, his heart sank. "Oh boy, that's..."

"Sonic...?" the pink hedgehog spoke, jaw agape, as though it was a question. Her eyes ever widening open, she began to take one step after another towards the familiar blue hedgehog.

Gulping nervously, Sonic stepped back. "U-uhhhh... H-hey Amy..." he chuckled, fully prepared to be tackled – and tackled he was, violently, to the ground... followed by a barrage of punches to his face. "Oh! Ohh geesh that hurts! Amy, what the heck is this?!"

"How _**dare**_ you show your heartless face around here after what you did, a-after what you s-said to me!" Amy seethed, "You shouldn't have come here, but _ohh_ am I glad you did..." she said, so full of rage she couldn't even form a smile at the thought of pummeling the hedgehog.

Not one other moment later, Knuckles restrained her from the hedgehog. He explained, as she struggled to free herself from his grip, "Amy! Amy! It's not him—I mean, it's him, but, he's not _him_!" This gave the pink hedgehog pause, for a moment, giving the echidna reason to let her loose. She took another look at the hedgehog, seeing that he was indeed different from who she knew, before socking him in the face once more and getting restrained again, "Amy!" Knuckles said once more, finally getting her to step off of the pulp of a hedgehog.

With a little help from the fox, Sonic was on his feet once more. "Guh, I... geesh, what the heck? That's the _second_ time I've been clocked today, what's the matter with all of you?!" He vented aloud. Amy seemed to want very much to give him an answer, but then apparently decided to withhold the information from the hedgehog instead. "Oh _come on_..." Sonic groaned.

"Just let it go for now, Sonic," Tails quietly advised, giving the blue hedgehog's shoulder a quick squeeze, earning a frustrated but resigned shake of Sonic's head, before addressing Amy, "I'm Tails, I'm... from another world, I guess. I wanna help."

This intrigued the leader of the resistance, causing her to turn to Knuckles, who promptly added, "he can make the universe-portal thingie work good as new—then we won't even need their help and we can just get as many reinforcements as we need." Amy gave it one more moment of thought before nodding, returning to her station. Feeling a little excited, to his own surprise, Knuckles gave a thumbs-up and an enthusiastic nod to the fox, indicating they were part of the team.

Reciprocating the thumbs-up, Tails smiled and turned to the hedgehog, "See? They can trust us if we're patient," he assured his dejected friend, confidently, before going with Knuckles to meet with Amy.

In his thoughts, Sonic bitterly replied, "Sure, they can trust _you,_ I guess..." Softly feeling the many bruises on his head from their supposed ally, he trailed behind the twin-tailed fox, catching what they were discussing.

"So, if we head over to this region of the island, we should be able to find the right materials. We'll have to split up so we cover more ground. Understood?" Amy authoritatively asked of the two others, impressing the two strangers with her levelheadedness and earning their affirmation of the plan.

Taking another step closer so he could be considered part of the group, Sonic added, "Yeah, let's _do it to it!_ When do we start?" It was then that Amy gave Sonic the most irritated of looks, as though she didn't realize what he meant even though it had to have been obvious, Sonic thought. "I'm... I'm coming, right?" asked the hedgehog.

Glaring at the big-mouthed hero, Amy answered, "Just as long as you don't _touch_ anything, don't get in our way, don't look for anything—don't even _look_ at me, too. Then you can come." It sounded reasonable to both her and Knuckles.

For Sonic, this was the last straw. "Oh _give me a break,_ " Sonic complained, "I don't know what your problem is with me here but that is totally bogus! The way you put it, I'm not gonna get to do anything to help! I might as well not even be coming along!"

"And?" Amy coldly said in response to the blue one's frustrations. Sonic looked at her, eyes wide in shock at how little she truly cared about him. Without another thought, she moved on, addressing them all as a group, "So, as for the groups..." she glanced one more at the shocked hedgehog, "... not doing that," she commented briefly, before deciding, "Tails, you're with me. Knuckles, you're with... _Sonic._ " Sonic had never heard someone utter a name with as much contempt as she did his.

His mouth twisting into a frown, Knuckles asked, "Awwh, why do _I_ have to get Sonic?" Amy gave him a firm look, indicating there was no way she was budging on this. "Fine," the brawny echidna sighed, looking disappointedly at the hedgehog, who then sighed exasperatedly.

Seeing his friend's long face, Tails went to Sonic for a moment, who perked up soon after he saw the fox approaching. "Hey," Tails said to the hedgehog, taking his thumb and pushing a corner of Sonic's mouth upwards, making a very silly-looking crooked smile, which promptly made Sonic chuckle a little and form a bittersweet smile of his own. "C'mon, Sonic, it'll be okay. We're doing the right thing, here," Tails said, before giving the hedgehog a nice big hug, like the one he had tried to give to him, months before.

"Thanks buddy, I know we are..." Sonic replied, pulling away for a moment and looking the fox in his blue eyes. There was something so warm in those eyes, though they were of a very cool hue, he hadn't noticed before in all the time he had known him. Off the corner of his eye, Sonic could tell their two new allies were getting impatient, so he leaned in one last time to hug him again. "See you when we get back," he promised, eliciting a light giggle from the fox that he could only faintly hear from being so near him. If nothing else, Sonic thought to himself, he'd be able to keep an eye on Tails and make sure nothing happened to him.

Not wasting another moment, they parted ways, Sonic following Knuckles and Tails following Amy.

* * *

Hours into their journey, Knuckles was still complaining. "I bet if _Tails_ was my partner, he would've found like _ten more_ shiny metal thingies," he stated, while Sonic stood still, close by, keeping watch from afar at how Tails was doing.

"Maybe _I_ could be helpful, if you would just let me _do_ anything," Sonic replied, although he could tell Knuckles wasn't listening at all, just like he hadn't for the several hours they had been there. "Okay, fine, lemme just _show you_ then," he stated, before finally letting loose and scouting the area at what must've been the speed of light – returning shortly after with _twenty_ pieces of scrap and material they would need for the repair of the device. "What did I tell ya?" He smirked, winking confidently at the echidna, whose jaw was agape.

Blinking once or twice in awe before saying another word, Knuckles stammered, "W-well, you aren't supposed to do that, so don't." He proceeded to then put the materials found by Sonic in his own bag with the rest of the materials he had found, eliciting an eye-roll of epic proportions from the unappreciated speedster. "Now just... stay out of my way, would you?" requested the red echidna, rudely, before moving on to another area.

This time, for just one moment, Sonic thought he might not come along after all. "What's the use... I'm not wanted here..." Sonic sighed to himself, watching the echidna walk away, standing still without a purpose.

Without warning, he was then grabbed violently by two unknown hands and dragged roughly away to an unknown area. "H-hey! Hey! Let me go!" Sonic shouted, struggling with all his might to escape their grip, but it was no use – they had ambushed him, and he was powerless. "Kn-Knuckles!" Sonic called out to the echidna, who didn't so much as turn to look at the hedgehog crying out for him, "Knuckles, please, you have to help me!" he shouted. It was in vain, and a part of him knew so, but he couldn't give up. "Knuckles! You're my friend, Knuckles, you're supposed to help me! Help, Knuckles! **Help!** " he desperately screamed, only to be knocked out shortly thereafter, by a painful blow to the head coming from an unknown source. His entire body went limp as he was taken away.

Miles away, Tails and Amy were finishing their search, a little unsettled by the distant screams they had been hearing but not enough to be distracted from the other random outbursts of the inhabitants of the island. "Okay, if Sonic and Knuckles managed to find any more than what we've got, we should have more than enough to fix the universe-portal thingie," Tails stated, grabbing his teammate's attention.

"Great, then we can start heading back now," Amy replied, forming a smile at the fox, before holding her communicator to her lips, "Knuckles," she called to the echidna through the device, "we should be good to go, meet us back at the base as soon as possible." With that call made, she motioned for the fox to come along with her, back to their base.

Tails knew his way around the island a little better than when they had first arrived, so he went ahead and flew ahead of her, retracing their steps and, after a few short minutes, descending back down into the base. Patiently, he then awaited for the others' return, seeing Amy's pink form come into sight soon enough, along with Knuckles coming from the direction he had last seen him and Sonic leaving in.

Only thing was, Sonic was nowhere to be found. Not behind, in front of, or on either side of the echidna. Tails worried.

When the two arrived the base itself, Tails expected an explanation of sorts about where the hedgehog was, but there was none. Knuckles passed him by and they proceeded to begin sorting the materials they had gathered. "Um, hello?" Tails said, calling for their attention and causing the two to turn their heads toward him, "Where's Sonic?"

"... Right, he was here too, wasn't he," Amy shrugged nonchalantly, turning to the echidna and asked, without a care, "hey Knuckles, where'd Sonic go?"

For a moment or two, Tails could observe Knuckles deep in thought, which Tails could only assume was him trying to recall when he last saw him. "Hmm... I dunno, I kinda lost track of him near the end there. Oh well," he answered.

Satisfied with that answer, Amy said, "Okay, whatever, he probably ran off somewhere to be evil or something, because of course he did." With that, the two resumed to lay out the materials necessary for the repair of the dimension portal device—which they found they had more than enough of. "Hmm... I haven't seen one like this before, where'd you find thi—"

"How could you say that?!" Tails asked the two in anger, surprising the two with the fact that Tails could indeed raise his voice to that volume. "You lost my friend and that's just—'okay, whatever'?! How could you be so mean? What did Sonic ever do to deserve that?" The goodhearted fox's tone was forceful, frustrated, but still not nearly enough to make either of them care. Seeing their apathy, Tails angrily excused himself and stormed off to somewhere in the base away from the two.

There was a broken window, where Tails could see out into the hopeless world. Privately, Tails thought, "Sonic... where could you be? You said you'd see me when I got back... you said you'd see me when I got back... Where are you..."

* * *

When Sonic came to, he was somewhere dark, lit dimly by torches lined across the walls of what looked to be a hall he was being carried through. The lighting irritated his eyes, but the part where he was being dragged against his will wasn't exactly fulfilling every one of his dreams and making each of his wishes come true either. "Where are you taking me?" Sonic questioned his captors, to which they replied with not a word in response.

Before he knew it, the large creaky door was opened and he was thrown unceremoniously into the room he could only guess was going to be his jail cell. "So nice of you to drop by," an unknown, yet familiar voice quipped at the hedgehog.

" _Well, it ain't solitary confinement, anyway,_ " Sonic thought to himself, before shaking his head and looking up. It couldn't be a jail cell, he realized, as his vision began to refocus it came to resemble more of a throne room. And on the throne, he... "no... it can't be..." Sonic said aloud, shaking his head once more and looking again, only to meet the owner of that familiar voice that was behind everything. A green-eyed, blue hedgehog. "Y-you... you're..." stammered the hedgehog.

"Sinic's the name – you must be me," Sinic replied, with the cockiest smirk that Sonic had ever laid eyes on, "welcome to my lair, loser. I run things around here."

 **To Be Continued**


	3. Act 2: His Own Worst Enemy

**Content Warning:** this chapter depicts a somewhat indirect form of self-harm. Brace yourself accordingly.

* * *

"And we didn't see him after that, at least not until months later. He came back with all this power and declared he would take over the island... which, as you can see, he managed to do..." Amy explained to the twin-tailed fox engrossed in his work, attempting to help him understand where they were coming from. "He just... he really hurt me. He really hurt all of us, and he still is now. That's why it's so hard for us to trust Sonic."

Not taking a moment to face either the pink hedgehog or the echidna beside her, Tails merely replied, laying his hand flat with palm out, "Wrench?" Knuckles handed the requested wrench to the fox, who then resumed work on repairing him and Sonic's way back home... that is, if they could find Sonic. "So," he started, beginning to tighten one of the screws, "you kept the truth from us because you for some reason assumed Sonic was going to end up like this 'Sinic' guy as soon as he learned he was powerful enough to take over the entire island and... that something bad happened months ago...? That settles that, then, consider me enlightened." He then realized he had screwed it too tight. Sighing, he twisted the wrench in the opposite direction, working to loosen it just enough.

Taking issue with the sarcasm, Amy replied, "We've been through a lot, Tails, it's not as easy for us to just go back to trusting someone like that..." After a pause, recalling memories she would rather have removed from her mind, she added, "... You don't know what Sinic has done to us..." She could see Tails wasn't happy to hear it, but he understood a little better.

For the first time in months, Amy recalled, "Sinic never cared about anyone but you—well, Tails from our world, anyway," a bitter laugh escaped her lips, "it's funny to think of now, but at one point I thought he did it for all of us... maybe even a little bit for me..." Her voice trailed off, having forgotten where exactly she was going with it. Still, much as a large part of her wanted nothing more than to stay blissfully ignorant, in Amy's heart there still lived the curiosity of who this other Sonic was—said curiosity got the better of her when she found herself asking, "... What's your Sonic like?"

It didn't take long for Tails to answer. "He's cool – the coolest guy I know," the mechanic started, "he does his best to do the right thing no matter what it is or how hard it is, because—even though he's saved the world so many times and faced so much danger in his life—the one thing he can't deal with is seeing something wrong and not doing anything about it." He paused for a moment from his work, and turned to meet the eyes of his allies. "That's why he went along, even though you both wouldn't stop being mean to him," he told them, causing them to break eye contact, "he cared so much about both of you and helping out whenever he could."

"... Our Sonic used to be like that..." Amy sighed, "that's what I thought, anyway..."

* * *

It was uncanny, their resemblance. Sonic fought his anxiety as he took one step after another, moving ever so closer to... himself, apparently. "H-how? How could it possibly be you?" Sonic asked, "I figured it'd be Eggman or some other... y'know, bad guy... but me? That's impossible – I do cool things, and fascism _isn't_ cool." he told the ruler of the island, refusing to believe the reality of the situation.

Cracking an amused smile at the hedgehog's seeming innocence, Sinic played along for the time-being, answering, "I know. That's why I'm doing this." He met the baffled look on his captured self's face, and decided to clarify, "See, it's really simple – every insufferable, cynical being on this pathetic island deserves every bit of suffering I can inflict upon them—so, yeah, I figured fascism was fitting." It did nothing to explain _how_ he came to that conclusion or _why_ they 'deserved' any suffering, but Sinic figured while they were kidding themselves he could draw out the 'conversation' with himself and hear some more of his own voice while he was at it.

More baffled than before, Sonic exclaimed a word he hadn't used so passionately and meaningfully since at least the late nineties, "That's... that's bogus!" Sinic didn't seem to understand the expression, as far as Sonic could tell from reading his smirking face, so he explained, "That's a word for when something is not for real, and I have not heard anything _close_ to being that unreal as everything you just said—not for a long while, anyway. Not to mention that doesn't even _begin_ to answer my initial questio—"

"No, no, I understood what you meant, _snowflake,_ " chuckled the fascist, in the most condescending fashion. "Now, how're your friends?" Sinic asked, with that grating voice of his that Sonic was losing his patience for.

Barely keeping his 'lid' on, Sonic answered, "they're good, they're all good. Probably worried about me since you captured me, probably not sure about my whereabouts, but good." His nose twitched. "Can you just... give me a straight answer why you're a fascist?" he asked.

Appearing to give the question some thought, Sinic merely replied, "Eh, how about first you tell me what you think about the weather we're havi—"

"Oh my gosh would you just **shut up!?** " Sonic yelled, eliciting laughter from his counterpart that he could almost feel in his own chest, "Geesh, you are insufferable! All I wanted to know is why you would ever take over like this! You're me! You're on the hero side! You fight for what's right!"

Raising his index finger up to signal for Sonic to pause there, Sinic jumped off of his throne and got right in the other hedgehog's face, pointing rudely at him, " _That's_ where you're wrong, Sonic! You aren't special, you _don't_ fight for what's right, _ **you**_ fight for what everyone else fights for – and that's **yourself.** _You're_ top priority, _you're_ the one you care about, the only 'side' you're on is yours and yours alone _._ That's how it was _before_ I took over, and that's how it's always _been_ no matter what universe I'm from," he declared, as though there was no truer fact in the world.

Looking into the heroic hedgehog's eyes, Sinic could see the shock his words had instilled in him, which finally set him off. "Why you little punk...!" snarled Sinic, enraged, as he picked the hedgehog violently up off the ground by his neck. "How about you just quit that? Stop acting so surprised. It should be **obvious** to you why I did this, but you keep dancing around it. Wanna talk insufferable? **That's** been getting on _**my**_ nerves," Sinic spat in his face.

"W-wow," Sonic coughed, "really, me asking a perfectly reasonable question is just nails on a chalkboard for ya, h-huh?" Sinic tightened his grip on his captive's neck, but he kept on speaking. "It makes no sense why you would be such a loser... You have so much going for you, you have so many friends..." this pushed Sonic's luck a little too far, and Sinic would have strangled him right then... had he not felt as though his own neck was being crushed in his grasp, promptly letting go. "S-so... that's how it's gonna work, huh? Y-you can't hurt m-me, without h-hurting... gah... y-yourself..." gasped Sonic.

He could faintly see Sinic stumble off somewhere out of sight. "I had _a_ friend—as in one. Just one," Sonic could faintly hear Sinic state, "I did everything I could to be a good friend to him, but then he died... I have nothing, now..." Sonic's hearing faded, with his rapid loss of consciousness doing little to help his effort to focus on his enemy. The blurry mush of blue in Sonic's vision that he assumed was Sinic appeared to have opened something up, before Sonic's vision faded to black and he was no longer awake.

* * *

"—and, y'know, sometimes he would do something really nice and... are you listening?" Amy asked, before noticing the orange and brown badger staring the twin-tailed fox down, occupying his attention from listening to her. "Uhh... Sticks? I can explain," Amy said, anxiety welling in her at how she would explain to the most distrusting person she had known why Tails was right before her.

Turning her head and meeting the pink hedgehog's eyes for the first time in months, Sticks replied, "I don't wanna hear it from you, you're not Tails." She then turned back to the fox and asked, "Who are you? And you better not say 'Tails' or I'll do something that'll be _really_ hard for the watchers to see." Tails had no idea what the stranger meant by 'the watchers,' but he didn't want to find out what exactly would be hard to watch.

Quick to correct, Knuckles told the badger, "Well actually, Sticks, we're not being watched this time, we're being _read._ "

Amy cursed her sorry luck as this would no doubt launch the badger into a tirade of conspiracy theorizing, only to remember Sticks had sworn off listening to a word that the echidna said months ago for reasons she was not aware of. All eyes were on the twin-tailed fox, waiting to see how he would respond.

With one deep breath, Tails softened his once-tense facial expression to the badger, smiling warmly and answering, "I'm the fox who's going to help save all of you from Sinic."

It was simple, straight-forward. No double-talk, no technological jargon, just a plain answer. Sticks eased herself, contrary to how she would be expected to act – the others used to know Sticks as more erratic than others, but she remained eerily calm in the worsening times. Perhaps the loss of pretense in these times, the 'us against them' mentality everyone had taken on, was preferable to Sticks than the illusory version of peace they had been taught in the past. "As long as you're with us and not with him, I don't care where you come from," she smiled back at him.

Looking back to the pink hedgehog, Tails asked, "can you start over again?"

"Sure, Tails," Amy said, happy to see the situation resolved with little to no conflict. "... When Sinic was Sonic, he... he was a jerk, yeah, but..." sighing, Amy reminisced, "when he would do his usual jerky nonsense, if he saw me—I mean, if he saw that someone was hurt by what he did—he would act like he didn't care about offending people, but really, deep down... at least back then, he would do something to make up for it... Th-there was even this one time I caught him and the rest of them reading my diary, that felt awful... but then him and the others put on this whole production of the stories I wrote in it and gave his all to bringing it to life even though he obviously didn't have the mountains of funds I would prefer be sunk into a serious production of my work, it felt like I was... maybe important to him..."

Having listened intently, Tails mentioned, "that reminds me—y'know, in _my_ universe, you have this _huge_ crush on Sonic. Like, you would insist you were his girlfriend and that you were going to marry him someday." This caused the pink hedgehog's face to turn a little red, provoking Tails to add, "I'm sorry, that was awkward, obviously you two are very different."

Pausing to gulp, Amy replied, "y-yes, no, it's okay, I mean yeah, that's interesting about her—'cause it's not true about me. It isn't." She was figuratively kicking herself for stammering so much, as she could see Tails saw right through her. However, she saw that he looked to Knuckles and Sticks, noticed they were utterly oblivious still, and then gave her a knowing nod. "Thanks," she mouthed.

"You're welcome," Tails mouthed back, before acknowledging aloud, "I guess Sinic wasn't always so different... but I know, no matter what happened, Sonic would never turn out like Sinic..."

Shifting ever so slightly in discomfort, Knuckles commented, "Wow... the way you talk about him, he sounds... perfect," he chuckled at the end, nervously, only to find in Tails's eyes that the fox was drifting away from them all to another place.

"There was one time where Sonic made me feel bad..." Tails began, "it was after this long adventure we had where we went all around the world to stop this evil being from coming out of the planet—long story, it worked out. Sonic hadn't slept the whole time, and I was really starting to see something behind everything... like there was a part of him he had never shown me before... Then, a day later, he was right back to his usual self, even after I'd seen there was more to him than I ever imagined... I asked him if everything was okay for him, and..." the fox's voice trailed off at the end.

For a time, the silence sat with them, filling the air until one could hear nothing else, before Knuckles shattered it, asking, "And what? What did he say?"

With a bittersweet smile, Tails looked at Knuckles and answered, " _I'm fine,_ is what he said. That's all he would tell me, nothing else. I stopped asking, of course, he doesn't owe me any more of himself than he feels comfortable sharing... it's just..." Tails paused, a pain entering his voice as he turned away from the echidna's gaze, "... I just wanted to believe he trusted me more, that's all..."

* * *

It was darker than before, when Sonic came to. His memory was fuzzy, it felt like he had just woken up from a strange whirlwind of a dream, unlike any he had ever had before—although that wasn't saying much, since he usually dreamt of birds and fishes and not much else. When his vision focused, however, he found himself present in that same throne room he had faded from before, only now tied up. He scanned the room as best as he could while his movement was restricted, eventually finding his counterpart once more. "Y-you..." Sonic grunted out.

Looking once more at Sonic and discovering he was awake again, Sinic merely replied, "Oh, hey," he stepped to gaze out of a large window that overlooked the island. "I think we got off on the wrong foot earlier," he stated, eliciting an eyeroll that the fascist could all but _hear,_ "listen, this is a new universe you've never been to before, you probably ran into Knuckles and Amy and they were probably 'Knuckles and Amy' about you, I get it. Now that you've got that out of your system, we can relax and talk things out."

Indignantly, Sonic shook his head and retorted, "Relax? How am I supposed to relax? I'm in a room with a fascist who captured and trapped me, this is probably the least-relaxed I've ever been." Having said that, however, he couldn't help but notice how much less frantic everything seemed, after he had been out of it for so long. He couldn't trust it—or anything he might discover in that room, he knew.

"... Let me tell you a story," Sinic began to say, piquing the captive hedgehog's curiosity, "you'll like it, it's about a blue hedgehog named Sonic."

Taking a deep breath beforehand, Sinic started, "He lived on this very island, a long time ago, and he saved the island all the time with his friends... and Knuckles... and Amy, Sticks—okay, well, it was more like just... he hung out with a friend who hung out with three other people whose friendship status with him was dubious at best—I'm rambling. _Anyway,_ " Sinic cleared his throat and continued on, "so one day, there was some trouble, like usual. They all went to stop it, and they did..."

"Riveting story there, jerk," Sonic quipped, provoking Sinic to speed over and introduce Sonic's cheek to the back of his hand. "Oof...!" The captive hedgehog whined, silencing once more and allowing the fascist to finish his story.

Satisfied, Sinic went back to his window and admitted, "It's true, it was a pretty uneventful day, I just felt like hitting you," indulging in a good chuckle, to the chagrin of his captive. Sinic resumed telling his story, all the while Sonic stared daggers at him, "Only after they thought it was over did the boom happen... See, some laser of Eggman's was still working, and it shot at the high edge of a mountain... only it didn't cause a giant piece of rock to fall down. Why was that? Well—and you're gonna _love_ this—Tails was there to explain everything."

Only then did Sonic's resolve to not buy a word the fascist said faltered, at the mere mention of Tails explaining something away, he was powerless to stop the begrudging smile rapidly growing on his face. "Hey there we are, see? I knew you'd love that part," Sinic smiled back, the sight of which caused Sonic's own smile to fade. "He went over to where we were sure the rock should've ended up and explained why the rock didn't fall, and _everyone_ groaned—except for Sonic, of course—even though it was easily the highlight of that day, just hearing him go on... Except, it turned out, he was wrong."

"Bullcrap he was, Tails is never wrong," Sonic reacted immediately, in disbelief, _completely_ taken out of the story.

Nodding along, Sinic replied, "Yeah, that's what I thought—but see, he caught it and corrected himself." This was acceptable to Sonic, who nodded, invested once more in the story. "It occurred to him when they all heard the sound of that unsteady rock crackle, but he didn't move." Sonic's heart skipped a beat. "I know," Sinic said back, even though Sonic hadn't uttered a word, "Everyone there knew it was going to fall, anyone who had ears and eyes could tell it was going to fall after all... but no one did anything."

Sonic's eyes widened.

"No, not Knuckles, not Amy, not Sticks, not Eggman—well, who was expecting _him_ to help—not anyone on the island... not even... Sonic. He called out to him, but he never moved. There Sonic was, the fastest thing alive, hardly walking two steps for his effort to save him... The rock fell, and... a-and..." Sinic choked up, "w-wow, you're really taking this badly, h-hero, it's almost like you had no idea what I've—wh-what Sonic's been through." Sinic then roughly forced Sonic to face him, staring directly into the captive hedgehog's tear-filled eyes. "Tails is dead now. Tails died, and everyone let it happen," Sinic ruthlessly told him, amidst tears of his own.

Wincing at every mention, Sonic pleaded, "s-stop it..."

Growing a devilish smirk, Sinic chuckled, "Oh, _are poor Sonic's feelings hurt?_ Too bad, you asked for it when you pretended you didn't notice Tails wasn't anywhere around here." There was a tinge of bitterness in Sinic's voice as he spoke, Sonic could feel in his random accusation—but, before it could be confronted, Sinic instead returned to the place he had gone before Sonic had last lost consciousness.

More conscious than he had been the previous time, Sonic observed Sinic opening a compartment hidden in the wall, and lifting out a red gemstone. Sonic gasped, "How'd you find that chaos emerald?!"

"Huh? Oh, that's what it's called? I thought it was more like some kind of _power stone,_ but okay," Sinic replied, strolling back to the blue hedgehog, tossing the gem in the air and catching it over and over, "I found it awhile ago, but I only learned how to use it after the boom. When I hold it and concentrate..." the emerald glowed and caused a slight tremor in the throne room as he held it tight in his hand, before he loosened his grip on the emerald - its glow and the tremor both faded at once. "... I get power," Sinic finished his sentence, "that's how I took over this lousy island. This was what gave me the power to take over, this is how I was able to make them all pay..."

Shaking his head, Sonic struggled against the bond that tied his hands together as he talked back, "pay for what? It sucked what happened, but people die sometimes, Sonic, you can't change what happe—aack!" he reacted as he was smacked once more by the hedgehog—this time dramatically harder, with the added power of the chaos emerald.

Winding his fist back and then planting it firmly in the captive hedgehog's chest, Sinic held back a cry of pain in himself as he harmed himself. "It's _Sinic,_ " Sinic corrected the captive, "and regardless of what can't be undone, there was so much that could've been done before it happened. Anyone could've stopped it, but _no one_ did. This island's punishment for ever allowing it to happen is my regime, and... my punishment... is continuing to live in a world without Tails."

"And what would Tails think of this?" Sonic coughed hoarsely, persevering in the face of the abuse Sinic was inflicting on him, pushing further, "What would Tails say if he saw you, what you've become. Would he like this?" It was then that he felt the most terrible feeling in his chest, like he had been told something that made his soul want to escape his body, which was followed shortly after by a near-fatal blow to the gut, dealt by the knee of his captor.

Looking into the hedgehog's eyes with the most pained gaze that Sonic had ever witnessed, Sinic answered, "Don't you _**dare**_ make me think of getting to see Tails again, Sonic, much less _hear_ from him even **one** more time." He turned away from the hedgehog once more and made distance between the two, before saying, "... _If_ Tails was here, alive, and with me, I wouldn't be telling him about this regime or what I've done to people—I'd tell him I was sorry for letting him die, and... sorry for never telling him I..." Sinic's voice, curiously, trailed away.

"... Never telling him what?" Sonic pressed.

With another deep breath, Sinic admitted, "... that I loved him. That I loved him like I've never loved anything before, like I never knew I could love anyone before he came along. That he deserved the world and more, that he deserved not just a best friend but someone who would hold him and tell him it's okay even though that's not edgy or cool or whatever..." Sonic couldn't believe what he was hearing, Sinic sensed, when he turned to look at the shocked hedgehog and said, "... Sonic, _tell me you already knew that._ " When he didn't receive a response, Sinic could only bitterly smile, "there's so much you don't even know, Sonic." He approached the hedgehog one last time, offering, "Here's a thought – who in your life has been there for you like Tails has? Is there anyone more special to you than Tails is? If there was just one person you could spend the rest of your life with, who would it be?"

Sonic stammered for a moment, unable to put together an answer for the hedgehog. "I thought so," Sinic coldly stated, before at last knocking the hedgehog out again, his fist formed around the emerald hitting his head brutally. With his captive unconscious once more, Sinic walked off to tend to other matters, trying in vain to ignore the thoughts that Sonic had awoken in him as he mentioned to no one, "Let's go tell all of your 'friends' where you are, Sonic..."

* * *

Tails was nearly finished fixing the universe-portal thingie made by his counterpart, watched intently by Knuckles and Amy, knowing full well it would be the final gasp of hope of the island. Unfortunately, things were looking grim, as it dawned on the fox that it would need a new power supply to function properly—a power supply that they did not have.

Defeatedly, Tails sighed and continued to work on the machine, hoping he could make it work enough to give them a chance at all, even if it would certainly be a risky chance.

In that moment, an aqua nutria spoke up, announcing, "We've intercepted a transmission from the CYN Regime..." He then let out a tired sigh and pressed the buttons required to project the transmission onto the screen where everyone in the base could see what was said. Tails, Knuckles, Amy, and Sticks all stopped what they were doing and turned their attention towards it as they saw the figure of Sinic crackle into view through the static of the transmission.

"Hey, resistance," Sinic spoke, "I'm calling you out because I found something that you _definitely_ brought here." He then panned the camera over to the beaten and unconscious captive of his, provoking Tails to stand as though for one moment he thought he could jump into the transmission and save Sonic right then—as ridiculous and illogical as that sounded. Without warning, Sinic then zoomed the camera in closer, showing his bruises in terrible detail in a display that shook everyone in the base to their core. "See those? That was just for fun. Now, if you don't want me to _really_ hurt him, you'll surrender by sunrise, tomorrow, and I'll let you have him back to bring over to where he belongs. 'Kay? Good. I wanna see all of you lined up, outside of whatever hole you're hiding in. Have a _great_ day!" The last part was sarcastic, needless to say.

Shortly after, the transmission was finished, and, in that moment, everyone was silent.

That moment ended when Tails was heard. "We can't let him get away with this," said the fox, flatly.

Amy started, "Well Tails, we ha—" before glancing over at Tails and finding him trembling in frustration, seeming completely ready to storm the base right away. "Tails... I appreciate your enthusiasm, but now is not the time to rush into things without thinking. We _have_ a plan, we _can't_ let ourselves get distrac—"

"I can't finish it soon enough!" Tails interrupted, silencing even the hardy Amy Rose. "I've tried my best, but nothing short of a miracle is going to get this hunk of metal working in a way that isn't a danger to everyone here. I really wanted to believe we could make this work, Amy, but there's no other way – we have to do something before Sonic gets hurt." Amy stared him down, and he met the gaze and maintained the eye-contact with her, before, finally, she let up.

Conceding, Amy told the fox, "Okay, Tails, you have your point, but what chance do we have going out there? I know you care about Sonic, and I'm sorry he got caught up in this, but I'd rather deal with one loss instead of **dozens.** " Her words weighed heavily on the fox, who looked out at the people that were there in the base, seeing their defeated looks.

Much as he would rather not have, Tails then mustered the courage to address everyone there, speaking up, "Can I have everyone's attention, please?" More eyes were on him, now. Gulping, Tails cleared his throat and said, "What I'm about to ask of all of you isn't something I can justify with logic and strategy... I never thought I'd ever say that, but... here I am, hehe..." he let out a nervous laugh, the sound of which floated in the dead-quiet base. "... I need all of you to take a big risk. I know you don't know me very well, I know you know the Sonic I know even _less,_ so I'm going to need you to just... give me the benefit of doubt." At that point, all eyes were on him.

"... Sonic... the one I know... is worth it," Tails stated, feeling his statement fall flat as soon as it escaped his lips. Bowing his head a little, Tails said, "Every one of you... I'm sure it feels scary, thinking of doing this... it'd be much more beneficial for all of you to just stay here, right? That's true, but..." with one last moment taken to gather what courage Tails had left, Tails faced them all again, declaring, "... Sonic would do it for you. He wouldn't even have to think about it, he would be out there _right now_ if he thought you would get hurt if he wasn't there right away. Any one of you, Sonic would risk everything for you." Something stirred in the souls of everyone in that room, something they thought had died inside each of them long ago... Hope. "So I'm asking you... to not do a favor for yourself. To do something that's gonna put you at risk, to do something... for someone else... I'm asking all of you to, please, help me save my friend."

Everyone could feel something change, in the room, but still no one said a word. No one, but the echidna, who answered, "I'll help." They saw Knuckles's face, wet with tears, as he turned to Amy and spoke, "You've been such a leader to me—to all of us, during all of this... but I need you to listen to me, this one time..." turning to the crowd, Knuckles added, "I need all of you to listen to me... I... I had a chance to save him before, but... but I didn't take it, no matter how much he called out to me..." This caused Tails's eyes widened, but he continued to listen intently. "I had no idea how much he meant to you, Tails," Knuckles told the fox, "but... now I do. I know he didn't deserve how I treated him... and I wanna make it up to him and save him, this time... even if it kills me. Who's with me?"

Not a moment passed before the first hand was raised, the next following shortly after, continuing until every hand was raised—including Amy's, who asked the fox, "Alright Tails... what's the plan?"

A smile grew on the fox's face. He motioned everyone to get in as close as possible, before explaining to everyone in the base just what they would be doing at sunrise the next day...

 **To Be Concluded**


	4. Act 3: The Return of Sonic the Hedgehog

Fish were in the sea, birds were in the sky. Some islanders were eating at Meh Burger, some were taking a stroll through the village, some were just relaxing and enjoying the dawn of a new day. It felt normal, and, if one was particularly good at tuning out the surveillance, the 'events' held by Sinic, and the detainment of others, it could indeed seem normal. But not one islander could deny something was brewing in the underground parts of their community, as rumors spread of a revolt against the CYN regime, some whispering to others what little they knew of it.

Some swore they had spotted former heroine of the island, Amy Rose, lurking around; others insisted they had witnessed a sighting of the once well-known Knuckles the Echidna, hurrying about; while a few had mentioned they thought they had seen the late Tails Prower in the sky, but that was met with skepticism as all knew full well what had become of Tails, as Sinic had punished them thoroughly for it in the months that had come since it happened.

As the sun rose up into sight, everyone waited expectantly to see the resistance reveal themselves in surrender to the CYN regime—witnessing every member of the resistance show themselves in plain sight, lined up in front of Sinic's castle. As the sun rose further, the islanders could identify each member – once family, who had disappeared from the public in the months that the regime had taken charge. The gates in the castle opened, as robot guards approached from within the castle toward the resistance members in order to capture each of them, only for a boomerang from out of sight to appear and knock a few of the guards out.

Turning to see who had felled the fellow guards, the bots witnessed a badger swinging in—letting go of her vine, catching her boomerang and rolling into the light—revealing herself to be Sticks the Badger. She then sprung off the ground and pounced another guard, swinging her fists against them without mercy. Before the remaining guards could get the badger off of them, a pink hedgehog jumped up from the shadows and took out another one of them. "Now, Knuckles!" Amy shouted out, as loudly as she could. Before the bots detected it, all the resistance members that had lined up were now charging—with Knuckles at the front, leading them all into the castle like a gust of wind.

Only then were they met with more guards, bringing their charge to a screeching halt as Knuckles was gripped by four of the guards while the rest made a makeshift wall between the resistance and the rest of the castle. It seemed to be the end of their effort, until a flash of orange flew in through the gates, revealing itself to be Tails – whipping an enerbeam into them and causing the bots holding the echidna back to malfunction, weakening enough to be pushed through once more and allowing for the charge to resume. "Hey, this thing isn't so bad!" Tails remarked, of the weapon his counterpart had used before his passing, receiving nods from his teammates.

They were in.

* * *

 _Running down the hills of green, passing by the same trees and stream. Sonic ran as fast as he ever had, but the day still passed him by, turning to night after what felt like hours of nonstop running. Sonic could have run further, he could have gone indefinitely, but he felt as though with each step he took his heart weighed him down further. His legs, feeling like hundreds of needles were piercing into them with each movement, finally faltered as the hedgehog slowed to a halt and fell to his sorry knees._

 _Looking up, his vision, dizzy, began to focus once more – witnessing the dancing stars in the night sky. There, Sonic gazed upon the fox, living amongst the stars. They were beautiful, twinkling, much more befitting a fox of his character than the island he had passed on from. Still, the hedgehog was selfish, reaching up into the sky and calling out, "Tails..." He received no response from the twin-tailed star-dweller. "Tails..." he called out once more, in vain, "come back... please..." the pained sound of his voice rang throughout the land, drowning out the sound of the waves splashing and the winds blowing, and—at last—finding its way to the ears of the fox in the sky._

 _The features of the fox seemed to soften, upon hearing the sound. When the starry figure set his gaze on the hedgehog himself, it grew more sorrowful than it once was. His hand withdrew, rejecting the hedgehog's calls and fading from his sight. "No... no, Tails... I need you... come back..." Sonic threw his voice, trying so hard to be louder but only seeming to fade with each word he spoke._

 _Alone, he cried out, but no one was left to pity him. His speed had gone, even his voice escaped him—leaving only a trembling hedgehog, shuddering on the floor of the loneliest hill on Earth._

Suddenly, the sound of metal being smashed stirred the hedgehog awake. "T-Tails—!" Sinic gasped as he was abruptly ripped away from his dream. He looked around, having rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, Sinic left his bed and went to retrieve his chaos emerald. It was where it always was, in that very same compartment, glimmering red as always. He grabbed it, closed the compartment, and went to go see what had caused the irritating noise. After traversing through several corridors, he found several of his robot guards marching over to the entrance of the castle.

Looking upon all of them, Sinic tried to get the attention of another bot that had been wandering around the castle, calling, "Hey, hey Cubot, get over here now." It took a few moments, but one Orbot appeared. "Cubot, what's going on?"

Timidly, Orbot replied, "I-it's Orbot, Sinic, sir, you stopped recharging Cubot long ago..." When the red robot saw the fascist's patience wear thin, he hurriedly explained, "Th-the resistance are attempting to take out our defenses and put a stop to your regime, sir."

"Oh," Sinic reacted, as if he was a disinterested teenager being assigned more 'boring homework,' "okay then, I know what to do." He then left the crimson bot and moved to the entrance of his castle, walking alongside the many robots of Eggman's that he had repurposed with the threatened coaching of Orbot. With a heavy sigh, he made it to the source of the conflict and—without taking so much as a moment to look at it all—Sinic gripped the gem in one hand and snapped his fingers with the other.

Tails, nearly about to enerbeam the next 'wave' of bots, was sent flying back to a solid stone wall from the force of the hedgehog's fingers snapping, knocking him out immediately. The rest were either incapacitated or badly-injured, making it all too easy for them to be detained at Sinic's will, which he promptly made clear, "Alright, lock them all up and have this mess cleaned by tomorrow, scrapheaps." They carried out his orders, leaving him to look upon the wreckage of what robots they were able to destroy in their efforts.

Not paying any attention whatsoever to the countless people he was detaining, Sinic's eye was caught by the sparking remains of a select few of the robots. The damage that had been dealt to them looked so very familiar, but it took the sight of the stray enerbeam to jog the evil speedster's memory. "This..." Sinic said, trembling in anger. "... Cubot," he called out, sharply, eliciting Orbot's arrival. He held up the weapon of his fallen friend meaningfully, making it clear for the robot to see, "find out who used this – **they're** the one I'm going to make an example of in the execution, today."

"As you wish, sir," Orbot said, being handed the enerbeam and hurrying off to identify who had used it in the revolt.

Without a care to stay in the entrance room any longer, Sinic went back to his throne room to check on himself. The halls of the castle were long and lonely, lit only by sparse torches—the daylight doing more to illuminate the area. Sunrise had come, and the resistance hadn't surrendered, so it was time for Sinic to keep his word and bring harm to his counterpart.

It took him a long while, but, when he arrived in his throne room, he found the hedgehog where he had left him—awake, now, as he could hear his groans of pain from being tied up. His own wrists were aching, the closer he got to heroic hedgehog, but a part of him felt as though it was worth it and that he deserved any pain he shared with the captive. "Hey, Sonic, your loser buddies tried to take down the regime – I'm sure you can imagine how _that_ went."

Appearing to want him to respond, Sonic felt that he had no words left for Sinic. All he could do was look at him, painfully, and wait for whatever was to come next. Sinic snapped his fingers twice, which seemed to elicit two bots to arrive, waiting for his command. "Cut Sonic free," Sinic ordered, much to the captive's surprise, only to realize his intentions when the fascist added, "let's give him some air and tie him up outside." So the hedgehog was cut down and then roughly gripped by the two bots, carried out to another area he had not yet seen before.

The place seemed to provide a vantage point for the quasi-arena immediately below it. For what purpose, he did not know. Seeking to enlighten him, Sinic explained, "Every month, since I established my regime, I've held a nice little _execution._ "

Sonic gasped, weakly.

"Mhmm, that's right," Sinic grinned, "Every month, I have these people gather around and kill someone. Sometimes I decide who gets executed, sometimes I leave it up to the other people I've got locked up here – and, if they don't come up with someone to execute, I make one of them **pay** for it. _Edgy,_ huh?" Sonic didn't find any humor in such a disgusting and cruel new 'tradition,' but he wouldn't give Sinic the satisfaction of seeing him get 'offended,' as he would put it.

Roughly, the hedgehog was hung by his wrists against the wall. "So you'll be getting the same view that I get," Sinic said, casually, like he had done Sonic a favor and he was just too cool to make a big deal out of it. Sonic was livid enough with the fascist, he was ready to tell him off, but he told himself it wouldn't be worth it to waste his breath on such a horrible hedgehog.

Carrying on the one-sided conversation, Sinic mentioned, "This time I decided to pick who got executed." Terrible, but predictable, Sonic thought. "Usually I don't care so much, but, in that little revolt the resistance pulled, some sucker used Tails's old enerbeam. I can't just let that freak get away with using his weapon after he died without paying for it..."

Though there were no words spoken, Sinic could feel what Sonic felt in his chest, and he decided to respond, "What, you think _I'm_ cruel? _I'm_ horrible? I'm just bringing out what was there all along." Sonic didn't buy it, so Sinic continued, "Everyone hates each other. Everyone, even the resistance—their little excuse for a rescue mission doesn't convince me they care about you one bit. The only person who wasn't a hateful, self-interested waste of space was Tails, and they..." Sinic paused, remorsefully, "... We... let him die..."

As much as he loathed the fascist, Sonic could feel how much it still hurt Sinic to have lost Tails, leading him to worry for the safety of the Tails of his world. Sinic could only guess what Sonic's feeling meant, assuming that he had merely disturbed him with his explaining of the way things work in his regime. "Yeah, you _bet_ it's like that," Sinic smirked, "people kill each other because they're only looking out for themselves, because that's who they've always _been,_ deep down... it only took Tails's death for me to realize that..."

"People don't care about each other," Sinic said, ceasing to address the hedgehog and instead merely talking to himself, "they're just looking out for themselves..."

* * *

Gently, the members of the resistance cared for each other as best as they could, while locked in their cells. Tending to one another was all they had, for the guards were certainly not interested in keeping them well. Amy and Knuckles both lent a hand where they could, Sticks did her best to try to pick the locks to no avail, while Tails still laid unconscious - out of sight from the other detainees.

Orbot entered the room, too far for the detainees to hear but still close enough to be a threat, so everyone in the cells went stopped trying to help one another through their cells and 'minded their own business' as they were expected to. Tails stirred, provoking his echidna cellmate to kneel and check on him. "Hey Tails," Knuckles said to the waking fox, "are you doing okay?"

Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, Tails responded, "Uhn... I think..." Shaking his head and feeling an impossibly-painful ache as he did so, he corrected himself, "No, not okay..." Tails could tell that dismayed his friend, but there was not much to be done about that, at this point. They had gone with the fox's plan against their leader's better judgment, it failed miserably, and the fox could only blame himself.

Gazing off to what Tails guessed was the Orbot of this world, he seemed to be requesting to see playback of the revolt from their databanks. What for, Tails didn't know, but it couldn't have been good. Taking his attention away from the bot, he saw Amy, sitting dejectedly in the cell to their left. Sighing, Tails felt so awful about how he had acted the night before, the way he had steamrolled over her authority and got them into this mess. Getting up and moving over to where the pink hedgehog could hear him, Tails apologized, "Amy... I'm umm... I'm really sorry, I should've listened to you..."

Not being able to muster enough energy to make eye-contact with the twin-tailed fox, Amy quietly replied, "You did what you felt was right, and it wouldn't have happened if I wasn't convinced myself... There must have been something else we could have done, maybe if we didn't get so caught up in getting back at Sonic for what Sinic did... there's no use in dwelling on that anymore..." She told the fox, just as she had told herself, over and over.

With the fox stood on his two feet, his two tails could be seen from afar, leading to one detainee that had been there for longer to remark, "Hey, you're Tails!" The stranger grabbed the fox's attention, speaking further, "You're the reason Sonic got all evil and did all the stuff he's done, aren't ya?"

Knuckles was about to talk back to the mouse when Tails motioned for him to settle down, replying to the mouse, "Sinic did do all of this because his friend died, and I am Tails, yes." He knew there was more to it than that, but he wasn't in the mood to argue alternate-universe politics with the stranger.

"Okay..." nodded the mouse, "well, I got separated from my sister last month because of you." The fox's face fell fast, but he listened on. "She was all I had, and you just had to go and upset that hedgehog... so, I hate you, Tails," the brother told the twin-tailed hero, "I hardly know you, and I hate you."

It wasn't what the fox wanted to hear in that moment, but he took it. He had no words to offer of value, no consolation was left in him. He appeared to lose the interest of the mouse as he continued to not respond. He felt a poke from the other cell, turning and meeting the pink hedgehog's eyes once more. "I'm sorry we got you involved in this, Tails, it's not you or Sonic's fault that things turned out the way they did," Amy apologized, quietly.

Before the fox could say another word, they overheard Orbot from afar. "Aha, thank you, that's all I needed," he said, before turning to face the fox and ordering, "guards, seize the fox and bring him to the arena to be executed." Tails's heart sank.

"Don't touch him!" Knuckles yelled, before letting out a cough as he forced his aching body up to move in front of the fox, serving as an echidna shield for his friend. He was swiped away by the bots with little effort, in no condition to withstand many more attacks after his run-in with Sinic, hitting the bars of his cell from the force of the blow. With the brawny ally out of the way, the bots quickly got hold of the fox and dragged him away. "T-Tails, I'm sorry..." Knuckles groaned as loudly as he could, hoping that his friend could hear him.

Sorrowfully gazing back to the cell, Tails yelled back, "No, don't be sorry, Knuckles, you did what you could!" As he was carried further and further away from the only friends he had in that whole world, closer and closer to his fate, the fox could only sigh as his lips quivered, "I- _I'm_ sorry..."

* * *

He had done this before. He had seen the most vile things come to pass, and felt nothing but contempt for the world around him. Yet somehow, today felt so different, so... wrong. Sinic was moments away from witnessing yet another execution, and it was making his skin crawl. Something was wrong about it—about everything, today. "It doesn't matter," Sinic repeated to himself, "it doesn't matter and I don't care..." he looked off to the area he had left Sonic at, presuming it to be the hero's fault for his feelings. That, and the beads of sweat decorating his features, from his counterpart's extended time 'bathing' in sunlight.

The time for the execution would come soon, Sinic realized, so he decided to join the hedgehog in viewing the area as it grew more populated. With each step closer to the hedgehog, suspended in the air by his wrists, his heart grew heavier. By the time he was sat in his chair beside the hedgehog, his heart and body were aching. Looking up at his captive, he looked almost numb—utterly expressionless, just cooking in the air like an overdone sausage. "Hey," Sinic said, asking for his attention but receiving none. "You must hate me... I mean, you're me, so you must hate me, what am I saying?" Sinic rambled to himself, earning not even a glance from himself.

Accepting the hedgehog's stubbornness would not allow for him to acknowledge him then, Sinic turned his gaze toward the arena. "Either you'll understand this—the execution, the regime, _me—_ or... you'll die... Whichever comes first, I guess..."

 _Unlikely,_ Sonic thought to himself, but he held his tongue still. He looked onward and found a crowd gathering, or rather, _being gathered_ in the arena by the bots at Sinic's disposal. It was only a matter of time until they would see who was to be executed, and said execution shortly after.

Sure enough, the sound of gates opening from directly below them—out of sight—crept into the two's respective pairs of pointy ears. They both watched on as the bots dragged the victim out.

"Wait..." Sinic said aloud as he witnessed the twin-tails of the detainee, his horror growing the longer he looked at the fox, before, by chance, the fox happened to turn his head back for one fleeting moment – unknowingly revealing his blue eyes to Sinic. "T-Tails..." Sinic realized, as it dawned on him just who it was that he had condemned.

It was then that the horrified hedgehog felt a scalding feeling enter inside of him, one he had felt only once before. " **How** _ **dare**_ **you...** " He heard from the once-silent captive hedgehog beside him, his voice _dripping_ in hatred. " _This_ is your idea of making me understand? Killing Tails again as if it proves a point other than you being a _lousy **scumbag?**_ "

Quivering, Sinic was at a loss for words. "I-I..." he stammered, which only made the other hedgehog's rage boil further in his chest, "I-I-I swear, I had no idea..."

"Really? You, the all-powerful ruler of this island, just didn't know it when you sentenced Tails to death, _give me a break,_ " Sonic spat back, his words cutting deep into the hedgehog that once thought himself numb to such things, "all you're proving to me now is that _it should've been **you.**_ "

His words rang in the hedgehog's head. He remembered how it felt to see his best friend be crushed by that rock. " _It should've been **you.**_ " He remembered all of the nights he spent wishing he had done something. " _It should've been **you,**_ " echoed once more, and then some, in his head. The fox was at last tied to the post, ready to be destroyed. Sinic saw a feminine mouse pick up a rock—the image of Tails being crushed by the rock filled his mind. The mouse wound her hand back to provide enough force to toss the rock, and Sinic shut his eyes as tight as he could. " _It should've been **you.**_ "

A rush of wind filled his ears, the soles his sneakers heated from the burst of movement, and, when Sinic opened his eyes, he found—where there was once only air between the mouse and the fox—there was now... himself.

Everyone was still, gasps and murmurs filled the air, but the hedgehog himself was shocked to find that the mouse's arm had gone limp before she could toss the stone. "Y-you didn't... you didn't kill him..." Sinic said, his mouth agape. The mouse nodded. "B-but... y-you know what happens when you don't go along with the execution, don't you?" The mouse nodded once more. "... Why?" Sinic asked.

"Because..." the feminine mouse started, "... I-I have a brother in your castle, and... yeah, I got separated from him because of what happened to Tails, but... I could never face him again if I went through with this and did what you wanted..." Sinic's eyes were wide as he listened, as attentive as he had ever been in his life when she definitively stated, "I could never say he deserved to die... I hardly know him, and I could never say he deserved to die..." Sinic looked out at the crowd and saw not one hand raised in aggression among them.

Not a single one of them could bear to see one more execution. It almost surprised Sinic even more to realize that, in fact... neither could he.

Without further ado, the hedgehog braced himself and turned to face the fox he was prepared to give his life for, instead meeting a similar fox that he had never met. It was Tails, he could tell, but, it was the Tails of his counterpart's world... "no," he thought to himself, "maybe... maybe everyone has a Tails, a best friend... maybe I've let a few of them die... maybe some are locked up in my castle..." He found that he had been staring at the fox for a couple of minutes at that point, which was embarrassing, so he did his best to disspell that feeling by untying the fox and freeing him from his bonds.

"Umm..." Sinic started, with an uncertainty in his voice that sounded alien to everyone who had known him, "... Hi, Tails," he greeted the fox, "I uh... I didn't think I'd get to see you ever again, and... I wanted to tell you that I love you and—" before he could finish the sentence, the twin-tailed fox planted a fist right in the hedgehog's face, knocking him right on his tail.

Frowning angrily at the hedgehog on the ground, Tails scolded, "I can't believe after everything you've done you have the nerve to think you can just say that to me like nothing's happened! You've terrorized the people of this island for months, you're a fascist, and you hurt Sonic!" Sinic was still stumbling to get back up, but Tails didn't care to let him get a word in. "I could never love you, Sinic," Tails told the hedgehog off, before hearing the threatening sound of bots quickly approaching him.

But, instead of being seized, Tails found that they abruptly stopped, at the command of the hedgehog he had just punched. With his hand up, palm facing out, signalling for them to stand down, the hedgehog wiped the dirt off of his forehead as he admitted, "Yeah, I deserved that, and you don't need me to tell you so..." When he had finished dusting himself off, he opened his eyes—revealing a light in his emerald eyes that was once thought lost. "... By the way," he smirked, "Sonic's the name." Before anything else could be said, he declared, "The CYN regime is over, I've been defeated by the Resistance, and I turn myself in."

It felt almost cheap to have it end that way, but life is often full of outcomes that don't quite add up. Sometimes, a loved one is suddenly and cheaply taken away from another, and just as suddenly can a regime fall at the hand of one twin-tailed fox. The Sonic of that world signaled for every detainee to be released, leading to the fox being reunited with his echidna friend. "Tails!" The brawny brick-red echidna exclaimed as he scooped the fox up into a big hug, before being joined by the pink hedgehog in a big group-hug. Off the corner of his eye, however, the fox found something that captured his attention completely – Sonic. _His_ Sonic. "Sinic—er, Sonic," he called to the hedgehog that had turned himself in, "free Sonic, please."

Nodding, the hedgehog sped up to where the hedgehog was and cut him free, leading to the hedgehog plummeting face-first onto the hard stone floor. "O-ooagh..." he groaned, before being helped up by the fox that had just flown up to the vantage point. "Ohh gosh, Tails," he spoke, still sweating profusely after having been left out there for awhile. "I-I think that Sinic guy loves you..." he said, losing consciousness more and more with each passing moment.

Tails could only smile, now reunited with his best friend. "Yeah, he kinda told me," the fox chuckled, "not my type—I'm not very into fascists." Sonic laughed along with the fox, weakly pulling him into an embrace.

"Y-yeah, haha, I'm not much of a fan of fascists, myself, either," he coughed as he clung a little tighter, "uh Tails, ahaha..." he said, with his remaining consciousness fleeing him, "I think I love you too..." and with that, the hedgehog was unconscious, held securely in the fox's arms.

* * *

When the hedgehog came to, he was back in the base of the resistance. As his vision focused, he discovered it had changed since last he had seen it. Where there were once covers over the windows, light shone through the uncovered glass; where there was a bleak atmosphere, hope filled every corner of the area; where there was darkness, there was now light. "Oh," he heard, coming from somewhere out of sight, "you're awake!" He searched his peripheral vision, then exerted himself to turn his head, eventually finding the echidna in the room.

Groggily, the hedgehog sat up in the bed and wiped the sleep out of his eyes, meeting the echidna's purple eyes and discovering a friendlier look within them than he had met before. "Uhh... hey, Knuckles, I—"

Abruptly, Sonic was then squeezed like a lemon, affectionately being hugged by the echidna. "I'm so glad you're okay, Sonic!" Knuckles exclaimed, before observing that the hedgehog was in agony, proceeding to let go of him. "Sorry, hehe," he apologized, before adding, "Well, sorry for this, and... sorry for umm..." his voice trailed off but as Sonic recovered from the hug it became clear what he meant to say—even if his shame got in his way.

Of all the things he had expected to come to pass that day, this was perhaps among the least-expected for the hedgehog, stunning him—an infamous loudmouth—into silence. "Ah... thanks?" Was what first came to the hedgehog, before he speedily corrected himself, "No, right, you're forgiv—I... I forgive you." One could almost hear Sonic's thoughts race in his head as he spoke, he was so taken aback. "Geesh," he wondered, "am I still asleep right now? That heat must've done something to my head..."

His echidna locks flowing as he shook his head, Knuckles replied, with a bit of a smile, "No, really, I'm sorry. I was a huge jerk to you and it was not cool." This time the hedgehog seemed to be more receptive to it, nodding and smiling in return. "Wanna get up and see everyone else?" Knuckles asked, causing the hedgehog's emerald eyes to light up like stars. "I'll take that as a y—"

"Yes!" Sonic interrupted, jumping out of bed quickly—only to lose his footing for a moment and be steadied by the echidna. "Thanks," Sonic chuckled, a little dazed, as he was guided to where his friends were. As he entered the next room, he discovered many busy people moving about in the area that once had been the base of the resistance but was now in the process of being dismantled – light shone from the sky down to everyone present, where once there was only dim illumination through the cloth that shrouded their base from the public eye.

Through the crowd of people surrounding her, Sonic initially had little luck in finding any familiar faces. First, he found an uninterested aqua nutria hovering in the crowd, while elsewhere he spotted the feminine mouse from before reuniting with a masculine mouse that seemed to have some relation to her. It was nice, and he was certainly happy for the two, but it was not what he was looking for.

However, with the echidna guiding him, he eventually came upon a separate crowd, through which he managed to make out the hot pink headband of Amy Rose – she seemed busy, presumably informing others of how they can help in their efforts to rebuild Bygone Island in the wake of the CYN regime, but Knuckles seemed sure that now was a good time to bring him to her. "Amy, look," he said, calling her attention towards them.

Excusing herself swiftly from the discussion she was having not one half-second before Knuckles called, Amy turned and met the green eyes of the hedgehog. "Oh, Sonic!" She smiled, before giving him a hug that came out a bit tight on her end for her liking. "I'm so glad you're okay," she told him, "c'mon, we've got something for you."

It wasn't ideal, being whisked away from person to person without being given much explanation, but Sonic appreciated being around friends after having spent so long in such a hostile environment. "Uaah..." Sonic yawned, before wondering aloud, "I don't get it, where's Tails?" It was answered only with a knowing look between the echidna and the pink hedgehog, which didn't make much sense to Sonic until they turned a corner and found the twin-tailed fox hard at work on their portal home.

"So if we use your chaos emerald to power it, it should be stable enough to where we can safely return home. Thanks again for this, Sonic," Tails said, to the blue figure next to him – who Sonic soon recognized as... himself, but from this dimension.

He involuntarily cringed at the sight of the former foe, which the counterpart quickly noticed. "Oh, looks like our _sleeping beauty's_ awake already," said the other Sonic, who approached the uneasy hedgehog with a friendly—if a bit smug—look on his face. "Hey, pal, it's over, remember?" The hedgehog formerly known as 'Sinic' reminded Sonic, "I'm just here to help, now... Well, me and those two, anyway... I'm not sure what Sticks is doing," he added, gesturing towards Orbot and the newly-recharged Cubot, as well as the badger who was sitting quietly while eyeing the twin-tailed fox intently.

Curious, Sonic remarked, "Wait, so you have an Orbot and Cubot too? I didn't expect those two to end up here at all."

Annoyed at the remark, Cubot replied, "Hey, we're just as important as the rest of you, other Sonic!" The bot then turned to the other blue hedgehog and thanked him, saying, "thanks again for recharging me, Sonic! It's nice to keep Orbot company and make sure he doesn't get lonely." Orbot shook his head but seemed please nonetheless to have his companion back.

Sonic's counterpart replied "It's the least I can do for you two," before handing another tool to the fox hard-at-work. He turned to his counterpart and smiled gleefully at seeing the fox do his geeky tech-y thing once more, eliciting a smile and a nod from Sonic. Growing a little more serious, for a moment, he said to himself, "I guess I just needed some closure, all along... I'm glad Tails is here so I can feel better..."

"... Actually," Amy said, catching the hedgehog's and everyone else's attention, "you could've just talked to us. You could've been honest about how you were feeling and we could've helped you along, like friends. Instead, you lashed out and took your guilt at losing Tails out on the rest of the island, when all along you could've just asked for help."

The area was shrouded in silence, all eyes were on Amy, until her Sonic finally spoke up, "... Yep, that's exactly true." As the group's gaze shifted over to the former-fascist, they discovered a genuine smile. "You know me well, Amy... maybe better than even I do, haha," he admitted. It was the first time he had made Amy smile in months.

Before anyone could dwell on the moment further, however, Tails gave one last crank to the machine and chimed, "Okay, all set! We should be able to head back right away now!" With that, the twin-tailed fox turned around, realizing that his best friend had been standing right behind him – with his long groomed quills, his big green eyes, and his smooth arms contrasting with his counterpart to where he was unmistakable between the two, for Tails. "... Sonic!" exclaimed the fox, before flying into him and giving him the biggest hug he had in him. "Are you okay? How are you healing up? Do you remember anything from when you were last conscious?" Tails asked relentlessly.

Gulping at the volume of inquiries the fox was presenting to him, the hedgehog attempted to answer, "Well, I _think_ I'm okay—I've been better, but I'm definitely feeling less awful than I did earlier, and uh... yeah, I remember everything." His answer to the last question came a little less smoothly, both from recalling what had happened as well as knowing how unprepared he was to face up to what he had told the fox mere moments before losing consciousness. They were silent for a time, Tails seeming to expect Sonic to say more, but, instead, he changed the subject. "Okay, I guess it's time to say goodbye, then," Sonic said. Tails nodded, but felt a little disappointed on the inside.

Unaware of any tension between the two, Knuckles quickly scooped the two up and exclaimed, "I'll miss both of you!" Tails eagerly hugged the echidna back, while Sonic twitched at the force the echidna was using on his still-recovering body. Knuckles quickly noticed and eased up. "Sorry, man," Knuckles smiled. "Do you think we can do this again, sometime? Maybe next time some of us can go to your world!" Suggested the eager echidna, to the amusement of the others.

"As fun as that sounds, let's focus on our world for a little while, okay Knuckles?" Amy offered, before hugging each of the two from the other world. "Thank you so much for everything, I'll miss all of you too." For a moment, she turned to Sonic and said, "I'm... I'm sorry I judged you for who you were in this world, Sonic..." she smiled, "I guess there's more than one way to be Sonic."

Sporting a knowing grin, Sonic replied, "it's no problem, Amy, I'm sorry I was a... whiny, fascist, loser douchebag in this world." He turned to face himself, finding him a little irritated in spite of himself. "Hey, to be fair to me, you _were_ going to kill me." He did seem to understand, as he humbly nodded. "I'm glad you did the right thing in the end," Sonic smiled, before holding his fist out for a fist bump from his counterpart.

"Yeah, you're right... I was a jerk," the other Sonic smiled back, before bumping the hedgehog's fist and causing him to lose balance and fall over. " _Oops,_ " he chuckled, before turning to Tails and asking, "I don't suppose I could convince you to stay, huh?" With a nod of the fox's head, he continued, "Alright... at least I get to say goodbye this time..." He started to open his arms out for a hug, but caught himself and let his hands fall to his side, before humbly holding one out for a handshake. "I understand if you'd rather not shake my hand..." he started, before having his hand gently taken and shaken by the fox. "Thanks... um..." he added, "... I hope I can become the Sonic you would've loved... I mean, the you from... you know what I mean," he rambled, eliciting a nod from the fox.

Finally, ready to leave after picking Sonic back up, they waved at the rest of the group and proceeded to turn the portal on, before being stopped by the badger. "Oh, Sticks!" Tails exclaimed, before opening his arms out and being hugged enthusiastically by the badger. "It was nice meeting you, Sticks, maybe we'll see each other again later," the fox told her as she pulled away. She looked behind the fox and spotted the hedgehog beside him, who gave an awkward peace-sign to the stranger. The gesture was appreciated, and she reciprocated with a peace-sign of her own. With that, they were let go.

Together, after so much time being apart, they waved once more to the world they were leaving, and returned to their own in just two steps.

It was just as they had left it – a bit of a mess, in the wake of Knuckles's impromptu visit, but otherwise untouched. The portal closed behind them and they began to reacclimate themselves to their surroundings, only to be startled as both the Knuckles and Amy of their world emerged from another room. "W-whoa! What're you two doing in our house?!" Sonic asked, exasperatedly.

Knuckles seemed to struggle to find an excuse, meanwhile Amy launched forward and tackle-hugged the hedgehog. "Oh Sonic, I missed you! It was like you vanished into thin air!" Amy exclaimed. Sonic was a little disoriented by the tackle, but appreciated her caring anyway. "Where were you and Tails?" Amy then asked, "And what _**on earth**_ happened to the table I got for the two of you?"

"O-oh, Amy! Yeah, _you_ gave us that table, right, about that..." Sonic sweated nervously, looking helplessly to his twin-tailed housemate, who—uncharacteristically for such a critical thinker—seemed to have just as little of a clue on how to get out of the situation. "Umm... an intruder did it, we gotta split, see ya!" He then grabbed hold of Tails's hand and hurried the both of them out of the house as quick as his hedgehog feet would take them, bringing them from their house to a hill not too far off from their home but still just out of sight for them to have some time alone from everyone else. "Oof, okay... yeah, I totally forgot she got us that one... I'm sure we can fix it, right?" Sonic asked the fox.

Nodding affirmatively, Tails answered, "Of course! It'll be better than ever once we're through with it." This caused a nice wide smile to grow on the hedgehog's face, as he looked out at the rising sun. A comfortable silence descended upon the two, which they both basked in for a little while. Still, one thing still dwelled in the fox's mind, and it couldn't wait a moment longer. "Sonic?" He called the hedgehog's attention, discovering the hedgehog forming an expression that seemed to say part of him knew that it would come up. He nodded, nonetheless, and faced the fox. "You said you loved me," Tails reminded the hedgehog.

Seeming almost embarrassed, Sonic broke eye-contact and replied, "Yeah... Look, I dunno what I was thinking, it's really awkward and uncool to just bring that up after you get done socking that other Sonic for saying the same..."

"The other Sonic was also a fascist and had done lots of terrible things, too," Tails added, "I mostly punched him for doing all that and _then_ having the gall to say that afterward... Why did _you_ say that?" asked the fox.

Looking back on the events of the past couple of days, Sonic recalled, "Well... he was a huge loser, but he _did_ get me thinking... He asked me, who in my life had been there for me like you had... was there anyone more special to me than you are... and if there was just one person I could spend the rest of my life with, who would it be..." The emerald-eyed hedgehog then looked into the fox's eyes, admitting at last, "I... I thought for a long time about it... today, even, I wondered... and I realized, it was true, there was no one else it could be but you... I love you, Tails."

With the light of the sun reflecting in the fox's beautiful blue eyes, he smiled at the hedgehog and replied, "that's all I wanted to hear." He then gently tugged at the hedgehog, who then allowed the fox to pull him into an embrace. It was certainly more-involved than a fist bump, and something about it seemed to differentiate itself even from the few hugs they had shared in the many years they had been adventuring together. But why? "I love you," Tails said.

" _Oh, that's why,_ " Sonic thought to himself, before it dawned on him what the gravity of what had just been said. "T-Tails, you... what?" He reacted, in shock at the fox's words.

Sighing at the hedgehog's disbelief, Tails explained, wearing a bright smile, "Well, like you said, there's no one else it could be." Randomly, Sonic then looked up into the sky and saw a flock of birds flying. "What're you looking for?" Tails asked.

Intently shifting his gaze to the sea, he replied, "My dreams usually have some weird thing where the birds turn into fish and I'm in the sky and then I'm in the sea and—" he checked Tails's expression and found it very baffled. "... Yeah," Sonic chuckled, "I guess this should've come up like nine years ago, huh? You probably think I'm weird now..."

To his pleasant surprise, the fox shook his head and replied, "Nah, you're weird, but in a cool way. We all are, really." Tails then squeezed Sonic firmly in his embrace, joking, "there, do you feel awake _now?_ "

"Oof!" Sonic grunted, "Yep, definitely!... Wait, then that means..." Sonic's eyes widened, as he erupted into vigorous denial, "No way! You love _me?_ No way! Really, you do? No way! That's too cool! No way?" He was hopping and running around as he realized the reality of the situation, amusing the fox into a fit of giggles. "This is happening, this is really happening, geesh!" Sonic exclaimed before collapsing in exhaustion from the burst of energy.

He was then picked up off the ground and placed back on his feet by Tails, who half-jokingly said, in between giggles, "Just kiss me already...!"

"I-I..." stammered the hedgehog, gauging the validity of such an invitation, before looking into the fox's beautiful blue eyes and seeing the sincerity through the laughter. Of all the things that the hedgehog had run into in his life, this one was the least-expected – yet not one more word needed to be exchanged between the two. That is, all but the ones that were at the tip of the hedgehog's tongue. "... I haven't actually done that before... I mean, I can't remember if I ever have..." he said, looking off nervously.

Capturing the hedgehog's gaze once more, Tails replied, "Neither have I... at least, I'm pretty sure..." Sonic chuckled at their mutual uncertainty, thinking to himself how wild and storied their lives must have been to cause such confusion. "I guess there's a first- _ish_ time for everything?" Tails suggested, eliciting even more chuckles from the sapphire speedster.

Strange how they were laughing their way through this moment that they would likely remember for years to come, Sonic thought to himself, before discarding the thought. First kisses can be funny too, he reasoned, as he placed a hand at the fox's side and another on his cheek. Tails's tails began to spin as he grew more and more excited—before he knew it, he was a foot off of the ground, with his tails propelling him upward in his excitement. "Ah... yeah, see? I told you your tails spin when you get excited, and now you're... wow..." Sonic seemed to run out of words as he felt the moment arrive. He leaned in close to the fox and their noses brushed up against one another.

At last, they lost themselves to the moment, their lips met and joined together. Sonic and Tails had been apart for barely a day, but it felt like it had been an eternity – with their lips wrapped around one another, even though it was the first time they had been where they were then, somehow it felt like they were where they belonged all along. Their adventure into that strange new world may have ended that day, but another adventure into a brand new world of their own had only just begun.

 **The End**


End file.
